


Projection

by Midgetrosie



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: But detailed enough to warrant a mention/warning, F/M, Holden/Debbie is “off-screen”, Implied/Referenced Blow Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Timeline Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:08:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27532027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midgetrosie/pseuds/Midgetrosie
Summary: Holden and Bill in another non-descript motel room.This is the first fic I have ever posted on AO3 so, um...here goes!
Relationships: Holden Ford/Bill Tench, Holden Ford/Debbie Mitford
Comments: 14
Kudos: 27





	Projection

**Author's Note:**

> The original idea for this came from a fic that I read (and re-read, and re-re-read) a few years ago: “BFFWB”, by the mighty emmagrant01, who is one of my all-time favourite writers in any fandom! Once I started writing, my version turned into something different to hers, but that is where the initial spark came from. I highly recommend BFFWB, even if you don’t know the characters. Go read it!

The motel room was just like any other, a trail of bland and uninspiring spaces stretching across a continent. For months now, they have been travelling together, sharing a car, a diner table, a bedroom. Holden can't honestly say that they have become friends, but they are certainly friendly, while still professional, and he feels he has earned Bill's respect and possibly even some measure of fondness.

They rarely discuss anything personal, though; their work giving them sufficient conversation fodder to fill any silences that may arise. which makes it all the more incomprehensible to Holden how he found himself making that stupid, childish “Debbie’s the first girl I’ve really dated-dated” comment today. Bill, being Bill, hadn't let him off his humiliation. Of course he hadn’t. He had mocked Holden, mimicking his own language back to him, and Holden had squirmed, tried to shrug it off, his cheeks burning hot with embarrassment.

As much as the various motel rooms all merge into one, there are several possible configurations of furniture. Holden doesn't have a strong visual element to either his memory or his imagination (and he regularly finds himself grateful for that, working in the field that he does, because who would want those images burned on the inside of his eyelids at night?), but he does find that he often recalls conversations and moments between himself and Bill by reference to the relative positions that they each occupied in the space in which they were located at the time. 

This particular room conforms to one of the most common configurations, beds side by side as opposed to end to end on opposite sides of the room. However, tonight’s version is smaller than many and thus the beds are a little closer together than Holden is used to, and significantly closer than he is comfortable with. 

Holden has lived alone since leaving college, and is used to having his own space. He craves that space on these trips, particularly when, as now, they have been on the road for four days, for the third week running. It is pleasing that the road school is in demand, but he wishes there was enough budget to allow for two rooms, or at the very least, for a less shitty, cheap motel, preferably one that offers more than a scant foot and a half of no-man’s-land between the two beds. Lying here propped against his pillows, case files spread across his lap, he could, if he so wished, reach out with his left arm and touch the cover on Bill's bed.

Not that he does want to, of course. But the fact remains that this situation is neither appropriate or acceptable, and he finds himself mentally composing a sternly-worded letter to the powers that be, instead of focusing on the photos of mutilated bodies that he holds loosely between his fingers.

Bill is sitting at the far side of his bed, with his back turned to Holden, speaking on the phone to his wife, Nancy. He always speaks to Nancy late, usually after he and Holden are both already in their night clothes, ready for sleep. Due to his months of inadvertent eavesdropping, Holden is aware that Bill and Nancy's son goes to sleep late; far too late for a child of the age that he assumes the boy to be. It seems that Nancy often struggles to settle him, and comes to her nightly calls with Bill tired, frustrated and needing Bill's reassuring calm. Bill usually mutters a brief "goodnight" to Holden once the call is over, rolls  
onto his side and apparently falls quickly asleep.

In order for them to be able to work together professionally whilst living in such close quarters, it is vital for them to maintain certain polite fictions, including pretending that they can’t hear one another's phone calls. So when Bill finally hangs up and lies back against his pillow, Holden makes a show of being engrossed in the papers on his lap, even to the extent of feigning being somewhat reluctant to look up when he realises that Bill is looking at him, waiting for his attention. 

“That was my wife-wife,” he says, dryly. 

Holden internally rolls his eyes, but decides that the best approach is simply to submit to the teasing. It is late and he is past ready to put aside his disturbing reading materials and exchange pleasantries before they both settle down to sleep.

Tonight, however, it seems that Bill wants to talk and Holden, still wired after their day spent battling combative, world-weary law enforcement officers, is happy to oblige, even if it means being the butt of Bill's jokes.

“Ah, yes. How is Nancy-Nancy?” he smiles, indicating that he is ready to be teased, hopefully gently.

"Hmph. Same as ever," Bill replies, sounding like he doesn’t want to talk about her, which is somewhat unfair, Holden thinks, when it is Bill who brought the subject up. 

Raising his eyebrows by way of asking for permission, he reaches across to turn out the single lamp on the small table between their beds. Bill nods to acknowledge the turning off of the lamp, but then continues, moving the conversation in an unexpected direction. "How about your girlfriend-girlfriend? You not calling her tonight?"

Holden blinks. This isn’t how his and Bill's conversations usually play out; this is too personal. Then, shaking himself slightly to re-set and re-focus, he addresses himself to Bill's question.

"Umm, no," he responds. “She's out with a friend tonight.”

"Ah, a girls' night out?" Bill muses, condescendingly.

"No, her friend is a guy. They go out together a couple of times a month, hit a few bars, go dancing."

Bill sounds slightly incredulous. "And you don't mind her going out with another guy?"

"Mind? No, Debbie and David are just friends - they've known each other since college. He's a good guy.”

"But she's out dancing, in bars. How do you know she isn't dancing with other guys, even if not this David?"

Holden is vaguely confused. "Why would I mind her dancing? I hate dancing, and she loves it. If she can get her fix without me having to be involved, so much the better. The only downside is that I’m out of town tonight, so I miss out on being home when she gets tired of dancing and heads over to my apartment”.

"Ohhh," says Bill, suddenly taking more of an interest. “She comes home to you after she's been out?"

"Well, not home. We don't live together," Holden corrects, somewhat pedantically (as evidenced by Bill's snort and the dismissive wave of his fingers that clearly communicates, "yeah, yeah, whatever”). “But yeah, she's usually wired after she's been out to a club and she doesn't want to go home alone to sleep.”

Holden trails off, feeling a blush blooming on his cheeks, suddenly realising that he has maybe given away more than he intended. He squirms slightly, sliding down his pillows until he is lying down under the covers. From the corner of his eye, he sees Bill mirroring his actions, only a couple of feet away from him. Their voices are low and the conversation feels suddenly intimate, in the privacy of their darkened room. 

"She’s... worked up when she gets to your place?" Bill asks, his voice a hoarse whisper.

Feeling emboldened by the darkness, but also by a dark intensity in Bill's tone, Holden allows himself to respond without over-thinking either what he is about to say or what consequences could flow from it.

"Yeah. I told you; she loves dancing. These clubs that she and David go to, I haven't seen them, I wouldnt want to go. But from what she has told me, the dancing there gets pretty intense. She's... you havent seen her, Bill, but she's a striking looking woman. She attracts attention from guys wherever she goes; I see it when we’re out in bars. These places... there are guys there who dance with her. She teases them, dances with them, lets them grind up against her. She’s just playing with them. Then, when she’s had enough, she comes over to my place..”

“... And she's not playing any more”, Bill finishes for him, suddenly sounding half-wrecked. Where the hell did that come from? And where is this going? He pushes the questions down and away.

“She’s not playing any more,' he agrees. Thinking about it now, remembering Debbie's behaviour after her last night out with David, he feels desire starting to pool in his belly, pushing lower down, his dick starting to fill with pulsing, tingling blood. A tiny thought flickers at the back of his mind, wondering if Bill is feeling the same way. But he tamps it way down, focusing instead on what he feels; trying not to censor, or even listen too closely to, the words falling from his own mouth.

"She has her own key, so she lets herself in," he goes on. "I'm still up, working, of course." His inner grammar pedant notes that he has switched to the present, unconditional tense; he's describing the events of a particular night now, rather than just talking generally about how these situations usually play out.

"Of course," Bill murmurs, acknowledging Holden's wry assessment of his own character, while gently encouraging Holden to continue.

"She stops just inside the front door, turns to lock it behind her," Holden goes on, hoarsely. "I walk up behind her, put my hands on the door on either side of her, caging her in my arms. I'm close to her back, pressed up against her, mimicking the position those other guys were in when they danced with her.”

Bill’s mattress creaks as he shifts on his bed - of course it does; this is a shitty motel after all - but Holden deliberately doesn’t look over at him; instead, he continues staring at the ceiling. He’s honestly not sure what he is afraid may happen if he sees Bill now - will he lose his erection, or will he lose control? He both does and does not want to know them answer to that question. He deliberately closes his eyes and slowly exhales, feeling like he has been holding his breath for hours.

Bill breaks the silence. "You can have what they couldn't", he prompts.

It takes Holden a full second to mentally replay the last thing he said, to enable him to process Bill's comment. Then he continues. “That's it," he says, softly. "they wanted her, but she was just teasing them. She's different with me, though.”

He’s all-in now, fully committed to this strange, intense dynamic. The atmosphere between them rests on him like a heavy blanket, suffocating but somehow comforting and familiar. His dick is fully hard now, and that part of this isn't new. He has laid in motel rooms with Bill many times before, all over the country, trying to will away stubborn erections. 

Not this time; this time, he doesn't want to hide. Under the metaphorical blanket of the darkness, and the literal blankets of his bed, he lifts his right hand from the mattress, places it on his own hip and slides his fingers under the waistband of his sleep-pants. The cheap blankets rustle, and he wonders if Bill can hear it.

He presses ahead with his story; his reminiscence. “I press up closer behind her, crowding her against the door”, he continues. “I take my left hand off the door and catch both of her wrists with it, pressing them against the door frame in font of her. Then I use my right hand to lift the hair from the nape of her neck, and kiss her. Just gently. I realised early on in our relationship that she loves that contrast; my lips soft on her while I use my strength to hold her in place.”

Holden’s questing fingers have reached his shaft now, and he runs his fingertips gently over it, teasing himself like he teased Debbie on the night that he's describing. The waistband of this sleep-pants is loose enough to allow for the unrestricted movement of his wrist, so he doesn’t feel the need to remove any clothing. He is surprised to find that he’s relaxed, enjoying himself. The memories that he is conjuring up from only a couple of weeks earlier are exciting and evocative, and the current tension in his body is building nicely.

Bill, on the other hand, sounds uncomfortable. His breathing is heavier than it was and Holden can hear his hips shifting on the bed. He risks a glance across, through half-closed eyes that have now adjusted somewhat to the gloom. He realises with a slight jolt just how close Bill actually is. His colleague's eyes are closed, and he is lying flat on his back. His left hand is resting on his stomach on top of the blankets, while his right hand, closer to Holden, is by his side, lightly clenching the blankets, which cover him to his waist. Bill is unaware that he is being observed; his hips are twisting restlessly. Holden feels a rush of sympathy for his colleague. How can he help Bill to relax? In a flash of inspiration, he realises that he can manipulate the story that he is telling, to maybe offer Bill some chance of relief.

Throughout this interlude in his story, Holden’s brain has been whirring, as ever, thoughts flashing like quicksilver before him. As such, his genius idea has become a fully-developed plan before Bill has even realised that he has paused in his narrative. 

Holden turns his gaze back towards the ceiling and slips his hand back inside his sleep-pants. He is vaguely surprised to find here that his erection has not flagged at all while he has been looking over at his partner in the neighboring bed; if anything, the need that he feels is more insistent than ever.

He prepares to continue, shifting seamlessly from reminiscence to invention. 

“I press up against her”, he repeats, noting the croak in his own voice, “and I move my hand down from her neck to her stomach, stroking there, moving my hand in circles, lower and lower.”

He has, of course, chosen the stomach to focus on because he knows that is where Bill's own hand is located. He wants to use his words, his voice, to give Bill permission to give himself the relief that Holden believes he needs... 

Unless he is just projecting?

Just like that, Holden is thrown-out of his own story; a sudden crisis of confidence. Is he alone in this? Has he totally misinterpreted this whole situation? He holds his breath.

"How low?" Bill croaks, his voice emanating from a spot only three feet from Holden’s left ear. And that’s it; the floodgates are open, and Holden feels instantly empowered to press ahead with the plan he has just cooked up.

"Not too low yet", he replies. "I'm only teasing her. She's leaning back against me, her head on my shoulder, and she's breathing heavily". 

As he speaks, he's aware of his own labored breathing, and also of Bill's. The beds in this room are so close together, and when Holden opens his eyes slightly, he can see the lower half of Bill's body without having to tum his head. Now that Holden’s eyes have adjusted, the weak light from the car park outside filtering in through the flimsy curtains is enough to illuminate Bill's body so that he can see Bill's left hand, the one furthest from Holden’s own bed, resting palm-downward on his lower stomach, his little finger moving slightly. The angle isn't great, and Holden doesn't want to move and risk breaking the spell that they both seem to be under, but judging by the shadows, he is almost certain both that Bill is hard under the blankets, and that he is stroking himself, oh so gently, with that one finger. 

Audibly drawing in a breath through his nose, Holden mimics the action, albeit under the covers in his case, unfurling the hand around his own cock, and instead stroking it softly with one finger. The change of pace should, by rights, slow down the building anticipation, but instead the knowledge that he and Bill are doing the exact same thing ramps up the excitement and his breath stutters slightly as he considers where to go next with his story.

"I'm still holding her wrists against the door frame with my right hand", he continues. "I slide my left hand from her stomach to her hip...''

He pauses again here. In the real memory that he is embellishing, Debbie was wearing a short skirt, and Holden had been planning to say next that he had slid his hand down to her thigh and pushed his hand up under the material.

But this story isn't really about Debbie any more; Holden can admit that to himself; at least. With his eyes half open and his gaze trained on Bill, Holden knows that what he needs to do next is to encourage Bill to move his hand under the bed sheets so that he can touch himself properly. But how can he achieve that without breaking character and throwing Bill out of the story to such an extent that he comes to his senses and puts a stop to this strange, intense  
moment? The connection between them feels fragile, delicate, in contrast to the strength of the arousal that Holden is experiencing, and he doesn't want to risk doing or saying something that might jeopardise that. So he needs to find a way to continue talking as if about Debbie, whilst also taking Bill along for the ride. It’s a challenge, but isn’t this what he does in his day to day work? Says the right words, with the right tone, to get the result he wants? He can do this.

He breathes again, recalibrates, formulates a plan, and keeps talking. "I slide my hand to her hip", he repeats, "then up to top of the hot-pants she is wearing. Slowly, I start to move my hand lower again, this time letting my pinky finger skim under her waistband, smoothing across her soft, sensitive skin". 

As he speaks, he is surreptitiously watching Bill, and sees him move his left hand further up his stomach and starts to insinuate it down under the bed clothes. Holden can’t be sure from this angle, and in this dim light, but he thinks he can also see the elastic waistband of Bill's pyjama pants stretching around his wrist, suggesting that his hand is inside his clothes, on his bare skin. Holden is flushed with success along with a fresh wave of arousal. He feels powerful, as though his words are directing and controlling Bill's actions. 

“I slide my hand lower, inside her shorts. She isn't wearing anything underneath . Her knees go suddenly weak, so I drop her wrists and instead move my right hand across her chest; for support but also so that I can touch her nipple through the thin material of her tank top.”

Holden is starting to feel as though he is having an out of body experience. He can hear his own voice as if as an outsider, and he no longer knows whether his own body is following his verbal commands, or whether he is simply narrating the actions that his body is demanding he takes. Like a weird triple echo, he hears himself describe the moment as he moves his own right hand to his left nipple, while at the same time also watching, out of the corner of his eye, Bill unclenching his right hand from the bed covers and moving it to his chest, out of Holden’s line of vision. 

Distracted by the pounding of his own blood in his ears, Holden makes his next move almost without thinking: he lifts his hand from his stomach and wraps it around his dick. With a shudder of arousal, he watches as Bill follows suit - and then he realises he didn’t say anything aloud about that movement. 

To this point, Holden has been operating under the assumption that he isn’t being observed, that Bill’s eyes are still closed as they were when he chanced a look several minutes earlier. Now he realises that Bill is watching him, too. 

With that, all pretence of this being simple horniness induced by memories of Debbie evaporates. He wants this to happen, and he wants it to happen with Bill, tonight. He decides that he needs to do all that he can to make it good for them both; tonight may be his only shot at this.

Of course, there isn’t much for Bill to look at at the moment, as Holden has his bed covers pulled up to his chin. He pushes them down below his waist, onto his thighs. He still isn’t fully exposed - he has on his sleep pants, but they don’t spare many of his blushes, given that his whole hand is shoved down them, its slow and steady movements up and down his cock clearly visible to Holden and therefore, he must assume, to Bill. He holds his breath. Will this be a step too far?

As he uncovers his body, he hears a surprised grunt from Bill. So he is watching, then. Holden deliberately doesn’t turn his head, but he can see the movement of Bill’s hand under his own covers speeding up. 

Bill tries to speak, but manages only a croak. He tries again, asking: “What next?” 

Holden is surprised. He thought they had moved beyond the artifice that they are just two masculine men, talking about masculine men’s stuff. He almost feels like laughing; despite everything, Bill apparently still needs some kind of plausible deniability here.

But he can’t deny Bill this. So he starts talking again. His words are a complete non-sequitur from where he had reached in the story, but he thinks Bill will forgive him this narrative leap. 

“She’s kneeling in front of me, mouthing at me through my pants. God, I’m so hard. She’s moaning as she starts to open my zip; she’s so desperate to taste me. She pulls me out without taking my pants down, and licks up my cock with a flat tongue, then swirls around the head, licking away the pre-come.”

He’s rushing through it now, almost tripping over his words. His languid strokes are gone and he is thrusting in and out of his palm at a rapid pace. His eyes flutter closed regularly, but when he peeks across to the adjacent bed, he can see that Bill is matching him, stroke for stroke. His own concentration is faltering, and he isn’t entirely sure now of what he’s saying, but he wants to keep talking, if this is what Bill needs. He wants to give Bill everything that he needs.

“She opens her mouth, rises up on her knees and swallows me down. My knees are shaking; even more so when she gently slides her hand up the inside of my thigh and cups my balls. I’m trying not to thrust, but she wants it, she wants me to. She grabs my hand and holds it to the back of her head, encouraging me to take... to take what I need. Oh God, yes, like that. It feels so good. It feels so good, the weight of it on my tongue, the taste of it, the... I’ve thought about it, wondered how it would taste. Thought about you holding my head and making me take it...”

His voice trails off into gasps, as he feels the need burst brightly into focus, and he comes all over his own fist and stomach. He can hear gasps to his left, followed by a long, low groan. He would have loved to watch Bill come, but for him, its like trying to sneeze with your eyes open; he just can’t. He does wonder, though, as he’s starting to come down, whether Bill watched him, and he can’t deny that he likes the idea of it.

They both lie still for several moments, breathing heavily, recovering. Then Bill gets up without a word, heading for the bathroom. The room is so small that he has to stand up between the two beds, agonisingly close to Holden. Holden feels he ought to give him some privacy, despite (or maybe because of) the intimacy they have just shared, so he closes his eyes and even flings an arm over his face for good measure. 

When Bill returns to his bed, still without speaking, Holden staggers to the bathroom to clean himself up. Whilst there, he mentally replays what he said towards the end, when he was almost beyond reason. He is horrified when it dawns on him that he lost track of who was who in his fantasy in that last rush to his orgasm. Oh God. What will Bill think of him? 

He stays in the bathroom far longer than he needs to, unwilling to face Bill. Will he be ashamed, mocking, maybe even angry? Eventually, he can wait no longer; the intensity of the experience has drained all of his strength and he needs to sleep it off.

He creeps back into the small room, remaining as silent as possible even when he stubs his toe painfully on the table leg, his eyes not having re-adjusted after the bright, unforgiving strip light in the bathroom. He collapses into bed, pulling the covers high and turning his back to Bill. The other man is silent, breathing slowly, and Holden assumes that he is asleep. Despite his exhaustion, he wonders if he will be able to sleep himself, dreading tomorrow morning as he is.

Then he hears Bill clear his throat. He braces himself.... then hears a soft “G’night, Holden”. Only those two words, but Holden knows Bill well enough to hear the warmth in his voice, and he feels sufficiently reassured to allow himself to succumb to sleep. “Goodnight, Bill”, he replies, before he slips under.


End file.
